Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
  Ok for a starter system or on a budget November 29, 2008
I bought this to replace a 8 year old Magnavox entry level system. I read the reviews here and thought I knew about all the limitations (mostly the lack of inputs and the speaker cable connectors. I bought this elsewhere today on Black Friday. I got it home and took everything out. I quickly noticed the speakers don't have industry standard mounting holes. Hmm. I wired my living room a few months ago and bought basic angled wall mounts. I took a speaker down and found a way to "rig" the mount...and was simply okay with it. I then test fit the system. My Samsung 750 LCD TV found the receiver and configured it right away. I put a DVD in and the input switched and began to play. I then tried going back to cable TV (I have AT&T Uverse). No sound. After a few minutes I realized I needed to use the optical cable from the TV to the receiver. Hmm. I was using the optical cable from my XBox 360 to my old receiver. Once I did this I turned up the TV....the sound wasn't as deep and crisp as my existing setup. Disappointed I put it all back in the box. I am going to return it and seek out another option. I am going to look at the more expensive Samsung models to see if they have standard cables and speaker mounting holes.
Great Value, Has Drawbacks... November 20, 2008
Overall, it's a nice product. I use it with a Samsung LNT-4065F. It's the first surround sound system that I have purchased, and I think that in the future I will probably build a professional system. This unit doesn't have enough inputs. The single optical input kind of sucks. Most televisions do have optical out, which I read in the prior reviews. However, what those reviews don't tell you is that nearly every TV on the market doesn't provide Dolby 5.1 through the optical output. It downsamples to PCM/Stereo sound. Therefore, if you hook up your PS3, DVD, XBox 360, AppleTV, etc. to your TV with HDMI, and an optical cable from the TV to this receiver, you have to depend on the receiver to upsample the 2 channels that the TV is sending it. The best solution is to run an HDMI cable from the device to your TV, and an optical cable from your device to the receiver. However, there's only one optical port on the receiver. Barring expensive switching devices you're screwed. Either upsampled 2 channel audio, or hook just one device to the receiver.
Had I known better, I probably would have built my own system. I didn't know enough about it at the time.
The sound quality is pretty decent if the inputs fit your needs. Sometimes the sound I get sounds a little muffled. The upsample of 2 channel audio isn't really *that* bad.
I don't use the upconverting DVD functionality. I use a PS3 to play DVDs, so I can't speak on that feature.
 Great for the price November 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Excellent sound for the price and small size. It's not audiophile quality, but is really quite good. I saw the other comments about upconversion, but didn't have such issues. On my Samsung 720p, my DVDs look very near to HD quality with no particular pixellation problem.
Cons: The controls/menus are clunky, and the receiver does not automatically turn on when I turn on my Samsung TV with Anynet function, which is a bit irritating.
 Satisfied October 23, 2008
Product was packaged nicely, easy for even me to install, sounds great for my space.
 Not impressed October 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have had home theater systems for years and this receiver is terrible. 1st of all, when I turn it on to listen to sound from my satellite TV receiver (through the D.IN input) I get audio for a few seconds and then the audio cuts out, the display says "good-bye" and it shuts off. I then have to turn the Samsung back on and then the audio stays on until I shut it off. I have to repeat this sequence EVERY time I choose to listen to watch TV and listed to the audio through the home theater receiver. The Samsung has very limited audio controls if you are using any input other than the DVD player. I completely regret this purchase.
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